1. Field
The present invention relates generally to multimedia in computer and consumer electronics systems and, more specifically, to authoring and playing of multimedia data streams.
2. Description
Digital multimedia encoders and decoder/render engines are typically designed for one of several well-known protocols or data formats. These protocols are defined to provide a xe2x80x9cbest-fitxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cone size fits allxe2x80x9d solution for digital content mastering and playback. For example, digital audio stored on a compact disc read only memory (CDROM) may be sampled at 44 kHZ with two channel stereo and 16 bits per data unit. This approach sacrifices some fidelity for almost every content sample due to the need to xe2x80x9cclipxe2x80x9d or downsample some of the original content in order to fit it into a prescribed storage and playback format. Fidelity clearly suffers on playback when the content to be played differs greatly from the expected norm. For example, rendering a classical music sample having a broad dynamic frequency range according to a protocol generally used for modern popular music or spoken word recordings may result in poor overall fidelity on playback.
With the advent of digital versatile disks (DVDs), this problem is exacerbated because of the extended storage capabilities of the DVD. With greater storage available, content creators may author content having a greater dynamic range and better sample size than before and still fit the content on a DVD. For storage on a DVD, digital audio may be sampled at 96 kHZ, with six channels and 24 bits per data unit. However, to render this content on a personal computer (PC), the data is downsampled into another format, such as the xe2x80x9cconsumer qualityxe2x80x9d pulse code modulation (PCM) format, for example. PCM provides for audio data at a sample rate of 48 kHZ, with two channels and a sample size of 16 bits.
Recently, DVD audio has emerged as a new multimedia technology. DVD-Audio is a separate format from the well-known DVD-Video used for motion pictures and other audio-visual content. DVD-Audio is defined in the DVD-Audio 1.0 specification published in March, 1999, and available from the DVD Forum, an industry consortium (see http://www.dvdforum.org on the Internet). For security reasons, licensing restrictions require DVD-Audio data to be downsampled to consumer quality PCM on a PC. Despite the encryption features of DVD-Audio, content owners are wary of the potential for piracy if the original, full fidelity content is available on the PC. Because of the downsampling, the content is rendered on the PC or other digital consumer electronics device in a sub-optimal manner. This is disliked by many content authors, who see their creative works being rendered in a form that is inferior to the form in which it was created and intended to be seen or heard.
What is needed is a mechanism for allowing content authors to control how their works are rendered on a digital playback device such as a personal computer (PC) or consumer electronics equipment supporting digital multimedia.
An embodiment of the present invention is a method of playback of digital multimedia content by a player application according to title specific parameters. The method includes accessing the digital multimedia content, accessing title specific parameters associated with the digital multimedia content, and processing the digital multimedia content to render the content to a user according to the title specific parameters. The title specific parameters may be stored on a storage medium (such as a DVD), along with the digital multimedia content.
Another embodiment of the present invention includes an article comprising digital multimedia content and title specific parameters to be used to control at least one of decrypting, decompressing, decoding and downsampling of the digital multimedia content prior to rendering to a user.
Other embodiments are described and claimed.